


push me, honey, to the up and right

by defcontwo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Eric Bittle is very attractive and it's A Lot, M/M, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:11:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the last day of junior year, and Bittle was still freshly concussed but grinning through it anyways, all wide eyes and summer-sun cheer, and talking Jack’s head off like Jack hadn’t just seriously let him down out there on the ice. And Jack was listening to Bittle, he was, but he also couldn’t help but get distracted by the curve of Bittle’s arms in that tank, by the tanned, freckled lines of his neck, and how the way his tank hanging off him somehow revealed more than if it had been skintight.  </p><p>It was a long fucking summer, thinking about Bittle in that shirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	push me, honey, to the up and right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparklyslug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/gifts).



> Because she went and talked me into it. With very little actual convincing necessary, but whatever. 
> 
> This entire fic was inspired by this INCREDIBLY DELIGHTFUL [text post](http://sparklyslug.tumblr.com/post/125368770794/okay-but-imagine-the-arm-muscle-bittle-has-like), I hope that's okay, OP, I absolutely could not help myself.
> 
> I guess there's, uhhh, handwaves, some very vague d/s vibes to this. Jack Zimmermann is into Eric Bittle being smaller than him and still being able to hold Jack down with his big strong baker's arms. What can I say. It just kind of happened.

Bittle is the smallest member of the team. He’s the shortest player that Jack’s ever played with, period, not unless you’re counting back to when Jack was actually in his early teens and it was normal, still, to be that small in hockey. 

Jack’s not sure when it happened, when Bittle’s size stopped annoying him, stopped seeming like such a fucking liability, and started doing something else to him entirely. Not sure when, unbidden, his lips would curve upwards in the smallest hint of a smile whenever they all went and stood shoulder to shoulder in the locker room before a game or a practice, and he could see so clearly that comical dip in height from Ransom, at 6’2”, to Bittle standing at 5’6” and some change. 

Because the thing of it is, Bittle isn’t weak. He’s small and he’s too fucking kind for his own good and he can’t take a check, but that’s not because he can’t physically take it, because whatever that’s about, it’s a mental game, not a physical lack. 

Bittle might be the strongest person Jack knows, for all that Jack will never quite be able to come up with the right words to tell him that. 

Jack’s lying to himself, though. 

He knows exactly when it happened. 

It was the last day of junior year, and Bittle was still freshly concussed but grinning through it anyways, all wide eyes and summer-sun cheer, and talking Jack’s head off like Jack hadn’t just seriously let him down out there on the ice. And Jack was listening to Bittle, he was, but he also couldn’t help but get distracted by the curve of Bittle’s arms in that tank, by the tanned, freckled lines of his neck, and how the way his tank hanging off him somehow revealed more than if it had been skintight. 

It was a long fucking summer, thinking about Bittle in that shirt. 

Jack spent those months telling himself that it would ease up, once they were around each other all of the time, once Bittle stopped being a fantasy that lived inside Jack’s overactive mind, and became just another teammate again. 

Jack was wrong, and he should probably be more used to that by now, by the way his life just keeps tripping him up every time he thinks he’s found solid ground. The tripping up, that part might as well be his solid ground, now. 

Of course it didn’t ease up at all. 

It just got worse.

~

Jack pads up to the Haus, headphones draped around his neck, and sweat dripping down the small of his back in a way that’s just uncomfortable enough that he’s annoyed about it, but not enough to keep him from ducking into the kitchen instead of heading straight upstairs to take a shower.

“Morning, Bittle,” Jack says, tossing his iPod down onto the counter, just out of reach of the pile of flour and baking detritus that’s covering almost every other inch of the kitchen. He’s flushed in the face and breathing a little harder than he usually is after a five mile run. Autumn is just around the corner, now, but summer’s doing its best to hang on real tight, and the New England humidity took him by surprise, this time. 

“Morning, Jack. There’s a pitcher of ice water in the fridge,” Bittle says, turning away from the pile of dough in front of him just enough to give Jack that easy, familiar smile that warms Jack’s already over-heated body all the way down to his toes. Jack plucks his sweaty shirt away from where it’s sticking to his chest. It doesn’t help. 

The pitcher of water is just as cold as Bittle said it would be, though, and there’s thinly sliced cucumbers in the water, another Eric Bittle classic, and it would take all day, probably, to catalogue all of the ways that Eric Bittle has already made this Haus better. 

“Thanks,” Jack says, raising his glass in salute, and sagging against the fridge to watch Bittle settle into his work. “What’s on the menu for today?” 

Bittle measures out a section of dough, separating it out from the rest, sure hands kneading it into the wooden cutting board. “Don’t know yet,” Bittle says, lifting one shoulder in a small shrug. “Hand pies, maybe. I don’t know, Mister Zimmermann, what are you in the mood for?” 

“You could use more protein,” Jack says, more for the reaction than anything else, and he’s not disappointed. Bittle rolls his eyes, blowing out a breath, but the fond, exasperated grin that Bittle sends Jack’s way makes Jack’s stomach flip, and it’s not -- it’s not the same, not like how sometimes he can feel the anxiety building low in his gut, it’s something else, something that’s not entirely unwelcome. 

“What if they’re breakfast hand pies, then?” Bittle says, hip-checking Jack out of the way of the fridge, and reaching into the fridge to pull out the carton of eggs, brandishing it in Jack’s direction. “Eggs have protein, right?” 

Jack hides his smile around the lip of his water glass. “I guess that’s acceptable, Bittle.” 

Bittle makes a harumph sound, but he’s just being dramatic, Jack knows, because for whatever reason, Bittle has chosen not to take it personally, how Jack acted towards him last year. Has chosen to let it go, to move past it, and Jack doesn’t know what he did, to deserve that, but he’s not going to question it when it means that they get to have this, these small, quiet shared moments in the dead of the morning, when the rest of the Haus is still fast asleep. 

“Are you going to help at all, Jack, or are you just going to stand over me and hover?” Bittle asks. 

Jack shrugs. “I don’t think you want me helping you, I’ve never really gotten the hang of baking, Bittle.” 

“We’ll have to work on that at some point, you know, for that class assignment.” Bittle sets to kneading again, and the thin cotton of his Samwell t-shirt stretches tight around the muscles of his arms. Jack swallows hard, throat suddenly dry for all that he’s just polished off a sizeable glass of water. He very carefully doesn’t think about what that would be like, to have Bittle slowly, and patiently coach him through the fine art of baking. 

Jack doesn’t know if he’s looking forward to that, or if he wants to put it off for as long as possible. 

“I’m gonna go grab a shower before Shitty wakes up and hogs the bathroom,” Jack says, setting his empty glass in the sink with a clatter, and making a somewhat inglorious beeline for the door before his imagination can get away from him too much. 

“Pies will be done in about an hour and a half,” Bittle calls after him, but it’s too late, Jack’s already taking the stairs two at a time. 

(If he takes an extra long shower, one hand braced against the tiled walls, and the other wrapped around his dick, with the mental image of Eric Bittle, small as he is, pushing Jack into the fridge and holding him there, never far from the forefront of his mind, well. That’s no one’s business but his own).

~

The thing about attraction is, it’s all wrapped up in control -- in having it, in losing it, in giving it up, and Jack spends every second of every day in a near constant state of trying to maintain an iron clad grip on himself, and never, ever letting go.

Jack’s trying to be better about being honest with himself, about his wants, his desires, about who he is at the end of the day, when it’s just him inside his own head, staring up at the ceiling in the dim of his Samwell bedroom. 

Losing control scares the shit out of him. He’s lost control, once before, and all it got him was a stint in rehab and too many nights spent between scratchy hospital bedsheets. 

But he guesses that’s the difference, with this, with whatever’s going on between him and Bittle that he can’t seem to just get over. 

He thinks about Bittle a lot, these days. Bittle, pushing him against the fridge, or Bittle, pinning Jack down into his twin XL bed with those strong, sure hands of his, or Bittle, making Jack laugh so hard that his cheeks ache and his chest feels fit to bursting with it. 

It’s different, if Jack gives up that control willingly. If he walks into it with his eyes clear, and wide open. 

He thinks he could do that, with Bittle. With Bittle, who is too kind for his own good, and who looks out for everyone else so much more than he ever looks out for himself. 

Jack thinks it would be worth the risk. And that knowledge, settling deep inside of him, a new truth that he’s taken a good, long time to come around to, doesn’t scare him at all.

~

“I cannot believe you, Jack,” Bittle says, “I cannot believe you’ve been hiding such a beautiful kitchen from me.”

Bittle stands stock still in the middle of Jack’s apartment in Providence, hands on his hips, glaring at Jack with very little actual anger. 

“Huh,” Jack says, feigning ignorance, and scratching at his chin. “Is this a nice kitchen? I hadn’t noticed.” 

Bittle drops his hands to his sides, and lets out a small laugh. “What am I going to do with you?” 

“I don’t know, what _are_ you going to do with me?” Jack challenges, and for all that this thing between them is still new, he’s reveling in it, in the fact that he can say these things to Bittle, and Bittle knows exactly what he means by them now. 

Bittle shakes his head, but eyes Jack with purpose, backing Jack right up until he bumps into the marble countertops of his kitchen island. Bittle’s eyes widen, and he looks surprised and just a little bit thrilled, by how easily Jack yields, and Jack can’t help the slow, lazy smile that curves across his face. There's a promise, there, in Bittle's reaction, in the way both of Bittle's hands rise up to cup Jack's arms and hold him in place, and Jack lets him, of course, and just barely holds in a whine at the steady, deliberate points of contact between them. 

“I’m all yours, Bittle,” Jack says, and God help him, he really fucking means that, for all that he knows his smile has gone real wide and just a little bit goofy. 

Bittle looks up at him through lowered lashes, and smiles sweetly. “You’re ridiculous,” Bittle says, and kisses him.


End file.
